GamerTab That was an excellent one.

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

winles We could all find endings to novels that we would like to change,but this is to set us up as a better writer than the author.Contains possible Spoilers:~The whole point of Daniel Deronda is to contrast the unloving Grandcourt and Gwendolynwith the loving Daniel & Mirah.It is also to show how the upper class society of England at the time was empty corrupt and without feeling. Where the oppressed,poor and faithful Jewish society was the opposite.To have ended the novel by putting Daniel with Gewndolyn would have completely ruined the whole point of the story. The point being Gwendolyn starts to see her redemption by not having Daniel(or anything she wanted) and Daniel realising just how shallow and selfish Gwendolyn was. As a subplot Daniel finds his Jewish ancestry and realises just why and what feelings he had for Mirah. Change the end to Daniel with Gwendolyn and you completely destroy the whole construction of the plot,and as such there is no novel. We cannot always have happy endings (in a novel as in life) and we try and alter them to our peril. Do we really think we are a greater author than George Eliot? Perhaps we should try changing Dickens,Hardy or Gaskell? If you answer yes then your ego is bigger than your intelligence.

Jay Harris This is an adaption of George Eliot's 1876 novel.To be sure, this is a Victorian novel of fine & not so fine Ladies & Gentlemen found in the Surrey area of the United Kingdom. (the novel is set during the American War Between the States, The mini-series is set in 1874. The novel was written in 1876..Andrew Davies wrote this lively, interesting script of various life styles of the period,using much humour.Tom Hooper directed this huge cast with ease. It was filmed in many areas of the UK & Scotland, with ending scenes in Malta (subbing got 1875 Genoa Italy).As typical of Victorian novels, we have handsome heroes, beautiful heroines,assorted friends, relatives & assorted other hangers-on. & of course a dastardly villain or 2.All these persons create our tale of the life of the Idle Rich & hard working poor of the times, This thanks to the fine script & direction is told with humour. This is not your usual dull masterpiece theatre plays of the more recent variety.Hugh Dancy is our Hero Daniel Deronda & what a fine lad he is. Romola Gerai & Jodai May are are heroines Gwen & Mirah.Dan loves both, OH what to do, Gwen is spoiled, Mirah is poor & with a past. Plot does thicken, as now we have a villain to contend withHugh Bonnevill as Harliegh a nasty,dastardly man & David Garber as his toady Lush.Add to this mix James Fox as Sir Hugo who looks after Daniel & Barbara Hershey as the mysterious countess who is----( I am not telling you) Also one of my favourite actresses Greta Scaachi is Lydia,is she really that devious. I am not telling.The sets, costumes music etc, is pitch perfect.The running time including credits. is a very fast 210 minutes.ratings **** (out of 4) 99 points (out of 100) IMDb 10 (out of 10)

ingemann2000 I'm watching the British series Daniel Deronda every week on Swedish tv, and I will recommned it to everyone who fancies quality literary adaptations. The production values are impeccable, and the acting list very impressive. The one to catch your attention, though, is without a doubt Hugh Bonneville as the supervillain Grandcourt. He's everything a good oldfashioned villain from the 19.th century ought to be: suave, cool, arrogant, manipulative, morally corrupt, and with a razor sharp wit. In fact, he totally overshadows the meek and handsome, but oh so noble and earnest hero, poor Daniel Deronda! Hugh Dancy does his best, but it's hard work to make Deronda as interesting as Grandcourt! Likewise with the heroine. Romola Garai is beautiful to look at, but it's difficult to really care about Gwendolyn. She's such a silly, whiny, and cold person who would rather marry a man she dislikes than stoop to be a governess! It made me long to give her a good whipping! All in all, I think she and Deronda deserve each other, for being so awfully colourless and boring. I'd much rather spend the time watching the villain smirk, or wonder about miss Lapidoth's strange fate, among the Jews. As usual, being the villain pays off! Hugh Bonneville and David Bamber as Lush are the characters you remember! They really are perfectly selfish and dastardly mean!

Philby-3 The usual lush mini-series adapation from that reliable team, Andrew Davies and the BBC, of a literary property, this time George Eliot's almost forgotten last novel. Daniel (Hugh Dancy) is the gorgeous if slightly wet boy of mysterious parentage adopted by wealthy amiable old buffer Sir Hugo (Edward Fox). He falls in love with the wrong woman, the beautiful but self-absorbed Gwendolen (Romola Garai). She however is propelled into marriage with ace bounder (and Sir Hugo's heir) Henleigh Grandcourt (Hugh Bonneville). Daniel then becomes interested in Mirah (Johdi May), a promising singer of Jewish background, and through her ailing brother Mordecai (Daniel Evans) the Zionist cause (yes, hotting up as far back as the 1870s). Grandcourt meets a bounder's fate and Gwendolen is now free to marry Daniel, but guess what…?The costumes are great, the acting impeccable, the photography luminous but the story lacks punch. It is didactic rather than romantic, with metaphorical posters all over the place for women's rights and a homeland for the Jewish people. Hugh Dancy looks right for the part but Daniel is too much of a prig to be very likeable (though he has my sympathy when he discovers that Barbara Hershey, resplendent in a Venetian Palazzo is his mother – Greta Scacchi would not have been so bad). The most engaging characters are Grandcourt the bounder and his sidekick Lush (David Bamber – Mr Collins in `Pride and Prejudice') and yet we are meant to despise them both. Gwendolen is sympathetic to the extent she marries Grandcourt to provide financial security for her mother and sisters, but she is a real dork otherwise. Generally the characters lack the panache of say, Trollope's characters in `The Way We Live Now', or Eliot's own in `Middlemarch'. Perhaps Ms Eliot should have quit while she was ahead.The critics at the time (including Henry James) were baffled by the `Jewish' aspect of the story. It certainly was an outsider's view, yet it rings true today; here Ms Eliot was being prophetic, or was at least aware of the combination of repression, deprivation and myth that could give rise to a successful social movement. In 1876, the year the novel was published, it seemed most unlikely that Palestine would ever become a significant Jewish settlement. Daniel, desperate to find out about his background, finds a cause bigger than himself and eagerly throws himself into it. One has the feeling that Mirah, musically talented though she is, is going to be playing second fiddle.Anyway, I enjoyed Hugh Bonneville's Grandcourt, a terrific bounder, and David Bamber's Lush (Mr Collins turns bad). And of course, this is Sunday evening stuff, so one mustn't be too picky about the crummy plot and the unsympathetic principals. I usually find myself at this point thinking `I must read the book' (if I haven't already), but this time I don't think I'll bother.